The rapid and reliable sourcing of spare parts is a critical factor in the cost, risk management, or otherwise efficient running of a manufacturing process. A process manufacturing plant may urgently need a spare part as a result of sudden machinery failure or other outage, and any delays incurred in sourcing the spare part may cause a delayed restart or downtime in production, costing the plant a considerable amount in lost manufacturing productivity and profits.
Presently, a process manufacturing plant may seek to contact an original vendor (or traditional broker or even another manufacturing plant) of the spare part to buy a replacement, but such a request may be met with a longer than acceptable delivery time (with or without rush fees), or news that the original vendor has ceased production of the part or has gone out of business, or that the price of the part has increased beyond that which the plant is prepared to pay.
Another current approach involves vendors and users advertising any spare parts for sale if and when they become available on an on-line “notice board”. The determination that a spare part is available for sale (or even exchange) is made as a result of conventional, “unsophisticated”, industry practices.
The most commonly used and simple approach that seeks to identify the number of spare parts held by a manufacturing plant utilizes movement history analysis to track or record the movement over time of a part used in its manufacturing process. However, that approach usually relies on limited historical information rather than on current information on the location and quantity of the spare part, and so may not provide for the rapid and reliable sourcing of the spare part.
An, as yet, virtually untapped source of spare parts is the approximately 150,000 process manufacturing plants worldwide that have an existing combined inventory of after market spare parts valued at over US$1 Trillion for use in their manufacturing processes. Analysis has shown that these plants carry about 23% more spare parts than are actually needed to run the manufacturing processes of the plants efficiently, amounting to at least about US$230 Billion worth of spare parts that are excess to the collective foreseeable needs of these plants in running their manufacturing processes efficiently, and that may be available to other plants in need of any such parts.
Obtaining rapid and reliable access to this after market source in excess spare parts would greatly reduce downtime of machinery and hence improve productivity and profits for both the buyer and the seller.